Large mining dump trucks, or mining vehicles, are used around the world to haul material excavated by a mining machine, such as a dragline machine, rope shovel and the like. In surface mining, for example, these mining dump trucks repeatedly travel a prescribed course that involves receiving a load from the excavating machine, traveling to a location to dump the received load, and returning to the excavating machine for another load. Many trucks, one after the other, are commonly used to haul the material away in a continuous manner.
These mining vehicles are constructed to carry a maximum load which includes the weight of the truck body plus the weight of the mined material in the truck body. The standard truck body is fabricated of plate steel walls supported by a series of interconnected large, vertical and horizontal structural beams to carry the weight of the mined material and withstand the impacts associated with receiving the mined material from the excavating machine. These standard truck bodies are designed with a hauling capacity of 136 to 363 metric tons. The heavy weight of the truck body limits the load of mined material the truck can transport.
The repeated impact on the truck body from loading and dumping through the operational cycles and truck body's oscillations due to adverse haul roads causes high forces and develops stress concentrations on the truck body and frame. Stress concentrations can reduce the fatigue life of the truck body and frame. Front towers on the front of the truck body can be used to transfer and distribute some of the forces from the truck body to the frame of the truck. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0015279 discloses front towers in FIG. 6.
Front towers are usually made using a series of vertical and horizontal interconnected metal plates to provide structural support for front side of the truck body to withstand forces induced by adverse haul road and the repeated impacts from loading. If the front towers are not strong enough, the truck body can be damaged. Specifically, the front towers and structural plates connected to the front towers can buckle and crack off the truck bed. This can impact the structural integrity of the truck body. In addition, if the front towers are not providing enough support, the life of the truck body can be significantly reduced because the stress induced by adverse haul road and from impact stress being wholly or mostly absorbed by the truck body. Furthermore, absence of these front towers or lack of contact between front towers and the mining truck's frame can reduce the fatigue life of the mining truck's frame.
The front towers of the present disclosure solve one or more of the problems set forth above.